1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns equipment for continuous, horizontal casting of metal, in particular aluminum. The equipment includes an insulated reservoir or pool, which is designed to contain liquid metal, and a mold, which can be removed from the pool. The mold is provided with an insulating plate having holes that communicate with the mold. The mold includes a preferably circular mold cavity having a wall of permeable material, for example graphite, for the supply of oil and/or gas. The wall provides primary cooling for the metal being cast, and at least one slit or nozzles are arranged along the circumference of the cavity for the direct supply of coolant, thereby providing secondary cooling to the metal.
2. Description of Related Art
As stated above, directly cooled horizontal casting equipment for continuous casting of metal in which oil and/or gas is supplied through the mold cavity wall through an annulus or a permeable wall element in order to form a lubricant film between the mold wall and the metal is already known.
Although this type of casting equipment functions reasonably well, the quality of the cast product is, however, much poorer than that produced by equivalent vertical casting equipment in which, in addition to oil, gas is also supplied through the cavity wall.
One of the disadvantages of vertical casting equipment is that it comprises a large number of molds. This makes it expensive to produce.
Moreover, the vertical equipment is only designed to cast specific lengths in a semi-continuous process. This also makes it expensive to operate.
Casting with horizontal casting equipment involves the use of only a few molds and the casting takes place continuously. Suitable lengths of the cast product are cut off during the casting operation. The continuous, horizontal casting equipment is thus both cheap to produce and cheap to operate.